


One Man's Trash

by 27dragons



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Android Bucky Barnes, Gen, finders keepers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons
Summary: Mostly, when the ‘bots went out scavenging, they brought back junk. Circuit boards melted to slag, coils of wire that had fused together, bits of broken glass and charred remnants of furniture. Tony managed to find uses for it all -- in the wake of the War, there was no such thing as trash; everything got repurposed somehow -- but that didn’t change the fact that it was junk.But once in a while, they happened across something good. A crate of transistors that had been miraculously shielded from damage. A handful of protein bars still sealed in their packages. Lengths of rebar. Tools, sometimes.This time, they’ve really hit the jackpot.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark
Comments: 51
Kudos: 248
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	1. S3 - Remote Control

**Author's Note:**

> This 'fic fills three squares for my Tony Stark Bingo card (#3033):  
> S3 - Remote Control (Chapter 1)  
> T4 - Artificial Intelligence (Chapter 2)  
> T5 - Fabrication (Chapter 3)
> 
> (*The full fill template will be on my tumblr, as I feel kind of dumb posting warnings, characters, and tags here when they're already in the AO3 header.)

Tony tapped his foot impatiently as DUM-E and U brought in the day’s haul. He peered through the cameras, trying to identify the scrap they’d collected from the ruins while it was still in decontam.

Mostly, when the ‘bots went out scavenging, they brought back junk. Circuit boards melted to slag, coils of wire that had fused together, bits of broken glass and charred remnants of furniture. Tony managed to find uses for it all -- in the wake of the War, there was no such thing as trash; everything got repurposed somehow -- but that didn’t change the fact that it was junk.

But once in a while, they happened across something good. A crate of transistors that had been miraculously shielded from damage. A handful of protein bars still sealed in their packages. Lengths of rebar. Tools, sometimes.

When the decontam was finally done and the inner door opened to let the ‘bots and their cart through, Tony was right there. DUM-E trundled straight up to Tony and nudged at him gently. He patted the ‘bot’s strut and looked both of them over for damage. Deterioration from the radiation, wear-and-tear from picking through the rubble.

U’s left tread needed a realignment, he noted, and they could both use a good cleaning, but none of that was urgent, so he turned to the cart. “So, what’ve you found for me today, hm?”

It wasn’t the usual jumble of mess, but instead what looked like an entire storage container of some kind. Too big for a standard safe, too small for an actual vault, but it was built along those lines: triple-reinforced metal walls, a heavy door with a hidden release catch. Probably it had been built specially for some purpose. The scanner turned up nothing, which meant there was a lead lining; the thickness of the walls suggested an insulating layer as well. Whoever had built this box had meant its contents to survive the War.

He ran his hands over the surface of it, looking for a way to open it. He’d get out a blowtorch and melt through the pins if he had to, but it would be more useful if it remained functional. “Where... There’s got to be...”

U nudged Tony in the arm. Which was unusual; usually it was DUM-E who pestered Tony for attention. “Not now,” he told the ‘bot.

U nudged him again, and Tony turned to look. “What is it?” U had some kind of device gripped in his claw.

Tony took it gingerly. It was a small box, about the size of Tony’s hand, with several buttons on it. A remote control of some sort. Mostly useless, now -- if its innards hadn’t been fried in the blast, then its power source had almost certainly run down by now. “Yeah, buddy, I might be able to do something with that, but it’s not going to work on anything. See?” Tony mashed a button at random.

A heavy _clunk_ echoed through the workshop, and Tony spun around to look at-- the vault.

Another loud thunk of a noise, and the door swung open.

Inside, curled carelessly like a doll that had been dropped into a toybox, was an android.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Tony breathed. They’d brought him pieces of androids before, but never a _whole_ one. Well, almost whole; its left arm was missing, the shoulder trailing loose connectors and wires. But given the care that had been put into the crate, there was a significant chance it was still in working order. “You boys have really outdone yourselves this time.”

He looked around, made sure to look straight into their cameras as he said, “Good job, DUM-E. Good job, U.” Their programming would recognize that behavior and those words as a reward, which would move their records of today’s patterns into long-term memory, to be used during future searches. Self-modifying code, reward-triggered. Enough repetition, and the quality of their scavenging runs would steadily tick upward.

At least, that was the idea. Tony hoped it was working.

Satisfied for today, anyway, the ‘bots rolled across the workshop in search of their charging stations.

Tony turned back to the android. It was curled in on itself like a sleeping child, hair dangling over its face so Tony couldn’t read its identifying marks.

He considered the remote. The pictograms on the buttons were fairly simple. Tony touched the power button, breath half-held in anticipation.

Nothing happened. Tony tried the button that looked like an open eye. That didn’t do anything either.

Either the remote had gasped out the last of its stored power in signaling the crate to open, or the android’s power source was dead.

Power was hard to come by these days, but for an _android_ , Tony would make sacrifices. First he had to find out what the power specifications were, but that was simple enough. Androids had been marked on their temples with microtext that identified them and provided their specifications. Tony brushed the android’s hair back to look--

“ _Jesus!_ ” He jumped back, startled by the android’s open, staring eyes, and the android’s head lifted to keep Tony in its line of sight. Tony pressed a hand to his pounding heart -- too soon, it was too soon to request more medication. Heart meds were hard to make, and there were others who needed them more. “You’re--” _Alive_ , he almost said, and swallowed it. “--active.”

The android’s eyes flicked down a bit, registering the remote still held in Tony’s hand. “Please state your name and identification number for my records,” it said. Tony had forgotten, over the decades, how eerily human androids could sound.

He licked his lips. “Anthony Edward Stark.” Shit, when was the last time he’d used his old ID number? Not since just after the War, probably. He scoured his memory. “5-26-FE-10880-MCS-12.”

“Voiceprint recorded,” the android told him. Those icy eyes stared at him blankly for a moment, and then blinked once. “I am unable to establish a satellite connection. The transfer of ownership is stored locally, and will be transmitted to Central Recordkeeping at the earliest available opportunity.”

Tony barely restrained a snort. Communications satellites had been early casualties of the War. It would be a long damned time before any records could be transmitted to Central, if Central even existed anymore.

The android blinked again, slowly, and then seemed to come alive all at once, offering Tony a surprisingly shy smile. “I’m BK-32557038. How may I serve you, sir?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who might be curious, the significance of their ID numbers:
> 
>  **Tony**  
>  5 - in Iron Man 1, he tells Pepper his social security number is (or rather, begins with) 5.  
> 26 - Is the atomic number for iron.  
> Fe - is the atomic symbol for iron.  
> 10880 - in Iron Man 3, this is Tony’s house number.  
> MCS - According to comics, Tony’s mother’s name was Maria Carbonell Stark.  
> 12 - Is the number that gets randomly mentioned in many MCU movies (officially there is no significance to it, but I like to try to work it in when I can anyway) :D
> 
>  **Bucky**  
>  BK - no special significance other than needing something that Tony can turn into “Bucky”  
> 32557038 - Bucky’s military ID from Captain America: The First Avenger.


	2. T4 - Artificial Intelligence

“Well, let’s get you out of that box, first,” Tony said. He straightened, offering a steadying hand. “BK-32557038. That’s a mouthful. You need a nickname.”

“I had a friend once who called me Bucky,” the android offered.

“That’ll do.” Tony wondered at the designation of _friend_ , though. Androids looked human, more or less, but they weren’t. They didn’t have friends. Or did they? The debate around artificial intelligence had already been raging for years before the War. Tony’s father had been at the center of that debate, and Tony had, once, been studying to join in.

Bucky’s hand was startlingly warm. He climbed out of the box with easy grace. 

Bucky was utterly naked, and whoever had designed his chassis had been a hell of an artist. Bucky didn’t seem at all bothered by his state of undress, but heat was climbing up the back of Tony’s neck.

He found a spare worksuit that was a little too big for him. “Here, get dressed.”

“Thank you, sir.” Bucky pulled on the heavy fabric without questioning it. “Have I been in storage long?”

“Quite a while, I’d imagine,” Tony said. “You don’t need to call me sir. Just Tony is fine. We don’t stand on ceremony here, not since the War.”

Bucky looked unaccountably sad. “Oh. So it happened after all. How long ago? Months? Years?”

“Decades,” Tony said bluntly. “It’s only in the last six months or so that I’ve been able to send my scavengers out into the wastelands.” He waved at DUM-E and U by way of explanation.

“Oh,” Bucky breathed. “Aren’t they _lovely_.” He crossed the workshop toward them as if drawn by an invisible magnet. 

“They’re disasters,” Tony said, but he wasn’t able to keep the fondness out of his voice.

Bucky stopped in front of DUM-E, who tipped his camera curiously as Bucky ran a hand over his struts.

“Look at you,” Bucky crooned. “This is amazing.” He looked back at Tony, wide-eyed with what looked like wonder. “They have AI?”

“Sure,” Tony said. “I’m too busy to manually guide them every second. There are some built-in parameters and some genetic learning algorithms. They’re not very smart yet.”

“They’re only six months old,” Bucky reasoned. “They’re _fantastic_. Did you do this all yourself?”

“Most of it,” Tony said. “They’re nowhere near as sophisticated as, say, you.”

Bucky flashed him a grin. “I’m the result of _dozens_ of scientists and engineers who worked together for _years_ , with access to a global network of data. And at least four generations of android before me. That you’ve done this much on your own, without any guidance or assistance... it’s very impressive.”

Tony shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise even if it made him feel warm. “Yeah, I had some advantages. My dad was an AI engineer before the War, and I managed to save a lot of his notes.”

Bucky hummed, patting DUM-E and turning to give U the same inspection. “Your treads are looking a little loose,” he told U, as if he were talking to a person. “Would you like me to fix that, Tony?”

Tony cocked his head. “Can you?”

“I am rated for a number of basic mechanical tasks,” Bucky confirmed. He touched his temple, and when his hand drew away there was a line of light stretching from his temple to his fingers like a spiderweb. The light scrolled downward into a holoscreen, showing Bucky’s specifications and ratings. “Unless there is another task you wish me to perform,” Bucky added diffidently. He didn’t actually say “sir”, but Tony heard it anyway.

“No, uh. No, you... Tread realignment on U, maybe give them both a good inspection for wear-and-tear? Can you do that with only one arm?”

“Sure, no problem. They can help me out. Be good learning for them.”

“Yeah, sure, I guess. If you want it, the job is yours.”

Bucky beamed at him happily. “I exist to serve,” he said, and despite the fact that it was the literal truth, it somehow came out sounding just slightly sarcastic, startling a laugh out of Tony.

Bucky took a quick tour of the workshop, noting the locations of various tools and supplies, and then coaxed U over to a workstation and onto a lift.

Tony watched for several minutes, but it was quickly obvious that not only did Bucky understand what he was doing, but that the ‘bots were both eager to help. Almost reluctantly, Tony turned toward his other work, building machines and devices for the rest of the compound.

He couldn’t really lose himself in it the way he usually did, though, glancing over at Bucky every few minutes.


	3. T5 - Fabrication

Tony’s work slowed as the quality of light in the workshop shifted into the evening’s artificial tones, and he looked up to find DUM-E and U back on their charging stations, cleaned and polished until they looked nearly new. Bucky was on the far side of the workshop, bent over a workstation.

When Tony drew closer, he realized the android was carefully sorting tiny scraps of metal that had come in on one of the junk runs.

“What’re you doing?” Tony wondered.

Bucky flashed Tony a quick smile. “From what I can see of your setup, these pieces are too small to be useful on their own. But they might be pooled into usable components. Fabrication will be aided if they are first sorted.”

That was, in fact, what Tony usually did with such scraps -- melted them down and combined them to create somewhat larger shapes as he needed them. But he didn’t generally bother sorting the different types of metal until he needed them. “What kind of sorting?”

“Steel, of varying grades,” Bucky said, waving at one pile. “Aluminum alloys, for parts that must be both strong and light.” He pointed at that pile, then shifted to indicate a very small bowl with an even smaller pile of dust in it. “Gold, which is not a useful building material, but can be used in the repair of electronic circuitry.”

“Also, dental repairs,” Tony added, impressed.

Bucky tipped his head, accessing databanks, and then nodded. “Yes, absent superior-grade dental resin, gold is a reasonable substitute.” He looked pleased as he pulled over another scrap to disassemble into its component pieces. It was a somewhat complicated process, with only one arm -- he had to clamp it to the table and pry or shave off the pieces he wanted to remove, then shift the clamp to start over.

He was definitely stronger than a baseline human, though. Tony could see that in the way he effortlessly pried pieces apart that had been fused together.

Bucky finished disassembling the scrap down into its component parts and then looked around the workshop, at all the projects in their partially-complete states. “All this is for the community?”

Tony shrugged. “Most of it. Some of it’s just for me. I keep a share of the salvage for my own use.”

Bucky considered that. “Am I part of your share?” he wondered.

“You’re your own share,” Tony said firmly, “same as if we’d found a human out there who’d somehow survived. You’re a person, not a possession.”

“I am a possession,” Bucky argued. “A valuable asset.”

“Under the old laws, sure. But you’re an AI sophisticated enough to make your own decisions about what’s best for you and for the community. Sophisticated enough, in fact, to make decisions  _ counter _ to your own best interests.”

“They’re also AIs.” Bucky waved at DUM-E and U, still on their chargers but looking up now, paying attention.

“They’re their own people, too,” Tony said. “You think if they didn’t want to stay with me, to work for me, I’d stop them from leaving? Plenty of other people here could use their services. Or they could roll out into the wasteland and never come back.”

Bucky threw him a look that could only be described as dubious, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he pulled the bucket of steel scrap closer and looked in, tipping it so the pieces clinked and rattled against each other. “What will you do with this metal?”

“I was thinking,” Tony said, “of making you a new arm.”

Bucky looked up at Tony, pupils shifting minutely as he examined --  _ analyzed _ \-- Tony’s expression. “Can you?”

“Sure,” Tony said. “I’ve got a real fabrication unit that I had installed here at the compound before the War. It’s old, but I keep it running. No synthskin in stock, so it wouldn’t look like a human arm, but it would be functional.”

Bucky looked dubious. “The connections to my control net are complex and number in the thousands,” he pointed out.

“I  _ am _ a genius,” Tony returned. “I can handle your control net.”

“But can your fabrication unit?”

Tony grinned at him. “Only one way to find out.”

Bucky grinned back. “Very well,” he conceded. “Make me an arm. But in the meantime, the end of the day is approaching, and I haven’t seen you eat since you woke me. You should have a meal, and while you are doing that, you can show me more of the compound, introduce me to your friends.”

“So you can decide where you want to go?” Tony felt a pang at that; even if it had been less than a day, he’d already grown used to Bucky’s presence in the workshop, chatting softly with the ‘bots and moving with quiet purpose as Tony worked.

Bucky turned to look the workshop over again, slowly, eyes flicking from point to point as he categorized each of the partially-finished projects, the pile of scrap, the ‘bots, and finally, Tony, from head to toe and back up again. “I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else,” Bucky said.


End file.
